


The secret between the two of them

by Josie



Category: Sunao ni Narenakute | Hard to Say I Love You
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josie/pseuds/Josie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a night out with the group, two lost and lonely souls find each other in the rain, and head for one last drink, revealing everything and nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The secret between the two of them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Keiko Kirin (sakana17)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakana17/gifts).



> I'd like to express my love for you for requesting a story about Linda. He's one of my favourite drama characters of all time, and so to be able to bring him back to life temporarily and write about him was a pleasure. I also got to like Peach a lot more than I had, through re-watching the drama and writing her character, and I hope I've managed to portray both of their amazing but somewhat tragic personalities in this story.

The man’s heart almost leaped out of his chest when his friend spoke the words, “I love you.”

He was silent for one, two seconds, and then there was a creak and a thunk as he dropped the one who had spoken as gently as he could onto the bed. A weight off his shoulder, in more than one sense.

“You’re drunk,” Linda pointed out bluntly, a chuckle sounding in his voice, although he felt like his heart had been broken in two.

“Does that mean I can’t love you?” Nakaji asked, his voice slurred, peering up at the other from underneath strands of flyaway hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.

 _Unfortunately_ , Linda was thinking, but he replied only with, “it means you should get some sleep.” He carefully pulled off the other man’s shoes, dropped them by his bed, and then covered Nakaji with the blue quilt on his bed and ensured his head was on his pillow. He thought removing any more of the other’s clothes would be one step further than he could reasonably deal with.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” Linda told his now rather drowsy friend, as if ready to leave, but he hovered by the bed as Nakaji’s eyes slowly slid closed and he watched his chest rise and fall as he fell into slumber. 

Once Nakaji was fast asleep, he moved forward and sat on the corner of the bed, feeling it creak again underneath his weight, but the other didn’t move. He started down at the sleeping man and ran a few strands of Nakaji’s messy hair through his fingers, and then drew back as his friend shifted in his sleep. 

With the realisation that he could so easily have been caught, he turned and left the other’s apartment without another glance, any traces of lightheartedness caused by the alcohol that had been in his own system completely disappearing in an instant, leaving behind an empty void.

As he headed down the street away from the building, he took his cellphone from his pocket. Sometimes, Twitter felt like a sanctuary. Sometimes, there was nowhere else to go. Despite that recently, his real life and online life had merged, when he typed those short messages, he no longer felt like Ichihara Kaoru, and that could only be a good thing. 

" _It’s hard when someone tells you something you know they don’t mean,"_   he typed on his keypad, and sent the cryptic message to Twitter.

 

Peach had drawn what she thought was the short straw this evening, having agreed to get both Doctor and Haru safely home. Doctor lived closer in her direction, and Haru was her best friend, her responsibility. Although she didn’t envy Linda for having to carry a drunk Nakaji on his back, her own walk to their friend’s homes had been more eventful than she had expected.

Doctor had spent the whole walk home singing cheesy Japanese love songs at the top of his voice, songs he seemed to have learned to sing before he’d learned to speak Japanese, and were therefore horribly mispronounced. After a while, even Haru, who was so drunk she was barely able to walk, had gotten fed up of it and had jumped onto the man’s back, clamping her hands over his mouth mid-sentence. Doctor had been so shocked and unsteady he’d toppled right into a puddle, and she’d had to apologise when she’d handed him over to his sister dripping wet and covered in mud.

Now finally, after a tiring journey, she was just leaving Haru’s house, having dropped her rather intoxicated friend there a few minutes earlier, when she heard a beeping sound from inside her bag. She fumbled through the things inside until her fingers gripped her cellphone, and she flipped it open to read the new addition to her Twitter timeline. 

Linda. 

Her head tilted slightly to one side, sending chestnut hair falling in front of her concerned face as she perched on a wall and typed, " _are you okay?_ "

 

Linda had halted his walk to buy a bottle of water from a nearby convenience store, and had then stopped to sit on a bench in the park near Nakaji’s apartment, not ready to go home alone quite yet. It was starting to rain lightly again, which was just his luck, but although he had no umbrella or even a hood on his jacket, this place still felt more appealing than his lonely apartment. He spread his legs out in front of him, back arched against the back of the bench, and lifted his chin, staring up at the stars in the night sky, letting the rain droplets hit his face.

He was just beginning to relax a little, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. A small smile came to his face as he read the reply from Peach. 

Thinking back, he could never figure out when it was they had developed such a bond, but there was something unsaid between them, some feeling that they were both exactly the same, although Linda knew it was in all the wrong kind of ways; that was exactly why they needed each other. He remembered when he barely knew her, receiving the news that she was in hospital, that she had tried to end her life. He had thought, if she had died, how could he deal with this life if she hadn’t been able to?

He read over the question she had asked him again, and half typed out a response, before deleting it and replacing it with, " _Did you get them home all right?_ "

  


It was so like him, Peach thought as she read over his response. Just like Linda to be asked if he was okay, and to respond with a question about one of their friends. It was just like her to do the same. She also knew though that with him, as with most other people, avoiding a question like that was not a good sign. Her brow furrowed in concern again, and she stood up again from the wall, brushing dust away from the back of her skirt.

She felt raindrops on her face, and opened up her umbrella, holding the handle in one hand as she typed her reply to the other. " _You didn’t answer my question_."

 

The problem with Twitter was that even if Linda did know where to begin, 140 characters was just not enough to do it in.

Would he begin with talking about how at work earlier that day, his boss had taken him into her office and pulled down the blind in front of the window? That he had been so scared that he had almost passed out, and that the only reason he had forced himself not to was because he didn’t know what she would do to him if he did? Would he continue and tell her that she had done those unspeakable things anyway?

Or would he start by telling her how he had carried Nakaji all the way home? That he had been able to smell the shampoo in his hair and the same aftershave he could smell on the man’s coat (which he still had in his apartment)? That his friend had told him he loved him and that he had let a drunken confession break his heart?

While his heart was still trying to decide which to go for, his mind typed the words, " _you didn’t answer mine either,_ "  and he sent the reply.

 

Stiletto heels splashed through increasingly deep puddles on the sidewalk, the light rain having quickly become a downpour. Peach had been planning on heading home, having fulfilled her duties, but was now heading back in the opposite direction, the direction of Nakaji’s apartment. She had worked out that even if Linda was still walking, he wouldn’t have gotten too far away. " _They’ll be fast asleep in bed now,_ " she replied quickly to the message, deciding it was pointless to keep questioning Linda on something he clearly wasn’t willing to answer.

Their friends were fast asleep in bed, but she got the feeling her and Linda would be awake for a while longer yet.

 

Linda had barely even noticed that the heavens had opened, and was now lying on the bench, head against its uncomfortable wooden arm, still staring up at the dark sky.

His clothes were soaked almost all the way through, right down to his socks, and water dripped through his dark hair and splashed into the puddles on the concrete below the bench. There was rainwater covering his face, battering his cheeks and between his slightly parted lips. He ran his tongue over his top lip, as a droplet of water made its way down his nose and onto his lips. It tasted salty.

He held his phone above his head to read Peach’s most recent message back to him, and then lowered it again. Everyone had gotten home safely, everything was okay.

  
Peach kept her phone in her hand as she headed down the path she knew Linda would be taking from Nakaji’s apartment to his own, glancing through the late night crowds heading home after nights out, many of them tipsy and rowdy. A clearly drunk man walking slightly ahead of a group of friends approached her, and made a comment that, with a well placed insult given in return, caused the man’s friends to laugh loudly at him and move on. Peach smirked, gave herself a quiet noise of celebration, and moved on herself.

She glanced at the display on her phone to see if the sounds of people shouting had drowned out the sound of her phone, but she had received no messages. She scrolled through her timeline again and read Linda’s original tweet, and then tossed her phone back in her bag, and returned her gaze to the streets, on the look out for her friend.

  
Somewhere along the way, Linda’s his eyes had closed although he had been far from falling asleep with all the thoughts floating in his mind. More tears had fallen from his eyes, he realised that at some stage, he had broken down crying. 

He only decided it was time to move when a stranger tossed a couple of coins onto the ground beside him, the sound of metal hitting concrete shocking him enough to open his eyes again.

Had the stranger who had tossed the coins thought he was upset because he had nowhere to go but this bench? If only it was that simple. He muttered a ‘thank you’ to the man although he didn’t need the money, and reached one hand down from the bench to gather them up, figuring he would toss them in a charity box later.

He stood up from the bench, and stretched a little. "Time to go home,” he told himself with a sigh. The way he spoke, his voice full of dread, made it sound like it was a terrifying prospect.

"Not so fast," a female voice spoke from behind him, and as he turned round, he found himself face to face with Peach, who was waving his cellphone in his face. "You dropped this," she told him. It was dripping wet, seeming to have landed right in a puddle. Linda vaguely remembered it being in his hand, slipping away. She had hit a button on the phone as she had picked it up, and the screen was now a blurred mess where water had gotten behind it.

"Is this why you didn't reply to my message?" she asked him, placing it in his now outstretched hand. He shook the phone, watching as water spilled from inside, and then pushed it into the pocket of his jeans.

"Yes," he replied immediately, and then realised that wasn't the truth. "I mean, no," he corrected himself. Why hadn't he replied? He supposed he had been too busy wallowing in self pity. "You weren't waiting for me to reply, were you? Why are you all the way out here anyway? Your house is in the opposite direction. Are you okay?"

"Do you think I have nothing better to do than wait for messages from you?" she grinned in response, and then shrugged. "I was just worried, so I came to find you. You still didn't answer my question," she frowned.

Linda sighed, wondering why they were back on that subject again. He gave her a reassuring smile, and reached out, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine, really."

"So, tell me who said what to you. Do I need to go and kick someone’s ass?" she asked, one hand on her hip, the other still holding onto her umbrella. She looked into Linda’s eyes, and noticed they were red.

Linda was silent for a moment. Standing in the rain in the middle of a park like this was no place for the truth. Then again, was there really any time for the truth when it involved something like that? "Nakaji told me he hated me. I accidentally dropped him, he landed on his head. He was drunk, it's nothing," he shrugged. Well, if he was going to tell a lie, might as well make it as far from the truth as possible.

"Nakaji? Oh, I could kick his ass easily.” Sometimes she thought she'd love every minute of it, too. "It bothered you?" she asked sympathetically, and then she took another glance at him. Linda was soaking wet, the rain had almost stopped now, but now he was standing, she could see a puddle forming beneath his feet. 

"Why don't we go back to your apartment?,” she asked him, shuffling close to him and sharing her umbrella, even though it was far too late. “I'll grab us some beer from the store, you can get changed into something dry and we can have a couple more drinks before the night is over.” 

“I’m not sure -” Linda began, and then stopped himself. He hadn’t wanted to go back to his apartment alone, but he couldn’t stay out here all night, so he supposed this was the best solution. “Okay,” he agreed, watching Peach’s face light up. “But I don’t want to have to carry  you  home, alright?”

Peach pretended to look offended. “Hey, I can handle my drink,” she responded, and looped her arm in the other’s.

  
It was fifteen minutes later when Linda finally unlocked the door of his apartment. Peach was now carrying a bag filled with bottles of beer, and Linda was carrying her umbrella. She headed straight into his tidy living area, and set the bag down on the coffee table, taking two bottles out of the bag, while he retreated to his bedroom to change out of his wet clothes.

"So, do you want me to kick Nakaji's ass for you?" she asked him when he finally emerged, now wearing a clean shirt and jeans. She had opened bottles of beer, and was drinking from one of them. “Me, him, tomorrow, one on one, what do you think?" She went right back to the subject, wanting to get to the bottom of why Linda had been sitting in the park in the rain crying.

"He'd hate you for ruining his pretty face," Linda replied as he flopped down beside her on his sofa. Once he'd sat down, Peach twisted in her seat, so her legs were spread out across the other's lap, her back against the sofa's arm. 

Nakaji's pretty face.

He closed his eyes, and the other's sleeping face popped into his head. He opened them again immediately to erase the image, even though it was burned into his heart, and distracted himself by fiddling with the lace on the bottom of Peach's skirt.

"Peach," he spoke her name affectionately and calmly, looking across at her face. "It's fine, really," he smiled. 

"You're lying," Peach responded as she took a sip of her beer, and Linda let out a long-suffering sigh. He was a good liar, he knew he was. He'd been lying to people for years, but Peach had developed this habit of being able to pick up on when he was, and it made his life very difficult.

Linda took a drink from his own bottle, letting the drink slide down his throat. Perhaps if they both got drunk enough, he could reveal whatever he wanted, and she wouldn’t remember it in the morning. 

“You’re not okay, either.”

He swirled his beer around in the bottle, the fingers on his other hand still fiddling with the end of the other’s skirt, and he stared at them for a moment, before his gaze returned to his friend. “You’re not the only one who knows how people are feeling.”

Peach bowed her head, staring into her bottle, and she shrugged. “Haru and Doctor were all over each other when I was walking home with them. It made me feel kind of -”

“Lonely?” Linda finished her sentence for her, and set his drink down on the coffee table. He shifted the other’s legs from her lap, and reached towards her, pulling her into his arms. He allowed her to rest her head on his shoulder, and recalled how many times they had been in this situation previously. 

There was silence for a minute or so, neither of them feeling like they had to say any more. Linda’s eyes slid closed once again, and once again he envisioned Nakaji’s sleeping figure in his bed earlier that evening.

He envisioned himself reaching out as he had done earlier, stroking the man’s hair and he saw himself leaning down, pressing his lips against the other’s. 

Nakaji’s eyes opened.

He began to kiss him back.

“Nakaji...”

Linda felt like he was crashing to the ground, and his eyes opened suddenly, wide, and for a moment he was stuck in that half-asleep confusion, wondering where he was. Things came into focus, and he realised that he was in his apartment, lying on the sofa, head resting against one of its arms. The next thing that came into focus was two empty beer bottles on the coffee table.

Two. “Peach?”

“I’m here,” a voice spoke, and Linda heard the fluttering sound of the page of a magazine page being turned over. Peach was sitting at the small dining table in the room, having let Linda have the entire length of the sofa, and had been flicking through one of his magazines while he slept.

She stood up, pushed the chair under the table, and returned to the sofa, shifting his legs and sitting herself with them on her lap, just as he had done with hers earlier. “You too?” she asked after a moment.

“Me too what?” Linda asked, turning his head to face her. He was still slightly drowsy, and he couldn’t get what he now realised had been a dream out of his head, he felt like he could taste Nakaji’s lips, even though that was impossible. But still, he felt like he was missing something when she spoke to him.

“Nakajima Keisuke.” 

Linda gave Peach an odd look, and it was then that he realised he had spoken the man’s name aloud in his sleep. “Oh, that.” He dismissed it with a shrug. “Just a dream, that’s all,” he told her, giving her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. A dream was all it would ever be.

“I see,” Peach replied, and bowed her head a little. “Yeah, I dream about him sometimes as well.”

There was silence again, as they both retreated into their own thoughts, thoughts of what this conversation that they hadn’t really had, really meant. 

“In ten years time, if we’re both still single, how about we hook up?” Peach finally spoke up, breaking the silence, and glanced to one side to look at Linda.

Linda chuckled a little, and thought over this proposition for a moment, before holding out his hands. “Deal,” he agreed, and they shook on it.

  
In his apartment a few hours later, Nakaji stirred in his sleep, and as he spread out his arms, he knocked a glass from the table beside his bed, sending it falling to the ground and shattering. He woke up immediately, and sat up, searching frantically for a weapon he could use to attack whoever this intruder was.

He blinked, once, twice, and as he began to wake up further, he realised he was on his own, and the pace of his heart slowed down. A quick glance to the ground revealed broken glass. He groaned loudly, his head pounding, and sat up, running his hands through his wild hair, and was about to stand up when he spotted an envelope on the table beside where the glass had been. His name was written on the front in what he recognised as Linda’s writing.

Stretching his arms above his head, he yawned and picked up the envelope, confused, wondering why Linda would leave him a mysterious note after a night out. 

Unfolding the piece of paper inside, he read over the simple six words inside.

 _You snore loudly when you’re drunk._


End file.
